This was a great book! It changed my life! I read it after getting involved with someone who admitted that they were 'commitmentphobic.' For whatever reason, even after knowing this, I still got involved. I felt drawn to this person like never before. Anyway, I was crushed when the 'relationship' suddenly changed and ended. I was left feeling very confused by their behavior, as well as by their reappearances in my life. I couldn't believe after reading this, how acurately it depicted the events that took place between my partner and me. It felt as if the authors were writing my dating biography.
Well, I now realize that my partners weren't all to blame. I kept choosing partners who weren't completely available for a long-term commitment. I longed for love, and yet kept running the other way, wanting "my space", when any relationship I was in got too 'close'-- or when it seemed like the other person wanted more than I was willing to give. Thus, unintentionally, I began to seek out persons who simply couldn't give the time or consistency to a warm, honest, and balanced relationship. You may think, like I used to, that you just haven't found "THE ONE". But trust me, if you have gone from relationship to relationship; if you or your partner suddenly have ended things and gone the other way; you have to come to realize that the issue is much deeper than it may seem. This book forces you to look at yourself in the mirror! Don't read this, if you want to continue pursuing 'fantasy partners!' Only read it if you want to GET REAL with yourself and your dating history!!! Get real..so you can get the real and committed relationship that you desire.
Also recommened: Men who can't love. ( Same authors )

Wow. Where to begin? A friend recommended this book. I have carried it with me for the past 5 days since my breakup. I am amazed because I feel as if the book is giving a biography of my ex as well as me. Every other word I am underlining and shaking my head "yes, yes!" This book has opened my eyes to the reality that I have a commitment issue (when I thought it was only my ex). I have read lots of "self help" books- this one takes the cake. I highly recommend this book along with "HE NEVER CALLED AGAIN" to anyone who is looking not only for answers and understanding, but also strength to make it through the painful process of loosing a love.

This book is fantastic! Having just ended a four year committed relationship with a great future and wondering "Why? What happened?", I purchased this book. Thank Heavens for a rainy Sunday because I could not put this book down. The authors thoroughly explain exactly what is going on in the mind and behavior of the commitmentphobic person. They help the reader understand the crazymaking behavior he or she suddenly exhibits and why. They also point out the signs that were there from the very beginning, but that we, the passive partners in the relationship, overlook, forgive, or refuse to acknowledge. The Appendix gives you ways to heal from the pain and move on in your life - and how to avoid getting involved with this type of person again. I very highly recommend this book to anyone whose fantastic relationship has ended and you are sitting there wondering "Why?". I would also recommend their previous book "Men Who Can't Love" - very enlightening.

What an interesting and fascinating read to say the least. I was intrigued with all of the participants of the book. Most importantly I was so overwhelmed with information about these vendors, and as a native New Yorker I didn't even know half of the issues that come into play. I see these vendors all the time and like all the other pedestrians I see them as a neusance to say the least, but I can empathize with them and the issues they go through while pedaling their 'goods'. I now have a deeper understanding of the complex social structure of the 'Sidewalk'.

Like the previous reviewer, I also agree with Spike Lee's statement on the back of Sidewalk: this is the best and most readable work of sociology I have ever encountered. It is a work of deep sympathetic understanding that is nevertheless a completely unromantic look at poverty. Most impressive to me as an attorney is the way that the author, while arguing these men are trying to live in accordance with standards of moral worth, is willing to explicitly acknowledge and look at the evidence whohc would contradict his claims. This is unlike most other ethnography I have read, which gives us such a limited range of evidence that it is difficult to know what to believe. I was also impressed with the afterward of Hakim Hasan, one of the key characters of the book, who gives a brilliant perspective on how, as a subject, he had an impact on the way the book was constructed, including the research questions Duneier asked.

his is the best and most readable work of sociology I have ever encountered, a completely unromantic look at poverty. Most impressive to me as an attorney is the way that the author, while arguing that these men are trying to live with standards of moral worth, is willing to look carefully at the evidence which would contradict his claims. Most authors only present the evidence which supports their view. Duneier spends whole chapters looking at behaviors such as urinating in public, sleeping on the sidewalk, talking to passing pedestrians, and selling stolen goods. These chapters make for fascinating reading.

It is also great that this author gives so much space to the voices of residents of Greenwich Village. It is astounding to hear the people in positions of power who work for the business improvement disticts, and what they --especially the woman who runs the Village Alliance -- have to say about the homeless. I was shocked to hear her say that where she thinks there should be a change in the law is that the first amendment should not protext street people. Wow! These are the kinds of things that never get said publicly but which secretly motivate efforts to get marginal people off the streets.

The book ends with a brilliant afterward by Hakim Hasan, one of the vendors. This alone is worth the price of of an otherwise extraordinary book.

Do you have the courage to enter Angela Carter's quirky realm of magical realism? She is brilliant. BRILLIANT! I love these short stories -- or rather, fairy tales that everyone is familiar with. The stories have very familiar themes, like tragic love stories, werewolf stories and Cinderella-like stories. Of course, Angela added her own ingredients in the stories. There are a lot of elements of sex and a large dosage of magical realism. They are so mind-boggling disturbing that I found myself thinking about them long after I finished reading them. My favorites are "The Lady of the House of Love," "The Snow Child," and "The Werewolf." I marvel at Carter's imagination. She is truly gifted. Her writing style sort of reminds me of Amanda Filipacchi -- a brilliant French novelist. In fact, I wonder if Carter influenced Filipacchi's work. I highly recommend The Bloody Chamber. This isn't for the faint at heart; this is dark literature at its finest!

On hearing that the writing style of Tanith Lee, one of my favorite authors, had derived in part from that of Angela Carter, I hastened to find a good collection and explore the similarities. I read this book, and while I am not going to compare and contrast the two styles, I am going to rave about Angela Carter. In the collection "The Bloody Chamber" she reworks five familiar fairy tales as well as spinning myriad tales from the werewolf theme and a tragic love-story out of the vampire myth. Each of the stories has its own unique perspective that works both as a stylistic trick and as a function of the story, such as having Puss-in-Boots proudly recount his own exploits, or having Beauty lost to the Beast at a game of cards. The stories are written sensually, reveling in their lush usage of language; the opening of "The Erl-King" smells of rotted leaves in October, "The Lady of the House of Love" casts haunted shadows at the reader's feet. One or two read like deconstructions of familiar tales, such as the surreal "The Snow Child" or "The Werewolf," while others are the old stories, stripped to their framework and then refleshed with Angela Carter's rich prose. All are absorbing, seductive, to read; if words are food, then this is highly caloric chocolate of the finest quality. (The bittersweet tint only adds to the flavor.) Enough of my raving; read the book yourself. For my part, I will be scouring my library for more of Angela Carter's work. You can never get enough chocolate.

I first read this book in college and it has become one of my all-time favorites. In this collection of short stories, Angela Carter takes the fairytales, nursery rhymes, and the images and themes they contain and perverts/illuminates them. What is most striking about this collection is Carter's writing style. Her language is simultaneously poetic and profane. The stories are heavy with her purple language, which is what makes them so satisfying to read. In additon to the exquisite language, Carter's re-telling of classic tales such as "Snow White," "Red Riding Hood," "Puss in Boots," etc., never fails to pay off. Carter creates a world in which Red Riding hood is the savvy hunter, not the innocent hunted. These stories make us focus on the overly simplistic (and often slanted) messages we were taught as children when these tales were first presented to us. In particular, Carter makes us question what fairytales have taught us about gender roles, marriage, and sex. For a trip into the fantasic that will make you laugh and make you really THINK, read this book!

This book is part textbook, part coffee table decorum, and part lavish work of art, but the overriding scientific data and lively prose string all the parts into a reasonably cohesive whole that is well worth the price. Carter covers the functions of the brain more clearly than any other cognitive neuroscience book around, and since she doesn't push any specific theory, but simply reports what is known and what is not (almost always indicating a delineation between speculation and knowledge--such as in the chapter on consciousness), her book is refreshingly objective in a field too often dominated by competing theories and egoic arrogance.

Best of all, the book is profusely illustrated with enough truly artistic paintings, photos, and diagrams to almost override the text itself in terms of usefulness and information value. As an illustrated textbook on neuroanatomy and as a comprehensive primer on neuropsychology, you can do no better. This book accomplishes exactly what it sets out to do, and for that I recommend it highly.

Unfortunately, like the vast majority of modern psychology and neuroscience texts, this book suffers from the gravest of metaphysical mistakes--namely the egregiously reductionistic approach known variously as scientific materialism, positivism, physicalism, scientism, and material monism. The first line of the book summary says it all: "Today a brain scan reveals our thoughts, moods, and memories as clearly as an X-ray reveals our bones. We can actually observe a person's brain registering a joke or experiencing a painful memory." The fallacy in the first sentence should be obvious. There is absolutely no empirical device that reveals the specific content of thoughts, moods, or memories. No EEG, EOG, EMG, PET, CAT, or MRI will tell you what I'm thinking or feeling. They might tell you _that_ I'm thinking, but not _what_ I'm thinking. No empirical procedure can determine whether I'm thinking about picking up litter on Earth Day or planning a local bank heist. Thoughts, moods, and memories are _not_ revealed by a brain scan as clearly as an X-ray reveals bones. They aren't revealed at all! Thoughts, moods, and memories--unlike bones--are not physical, empirical quantities. They don't have simple location in the physical worldspace. What a brain scan detects, rather, is the objective _correlate_ of a subjective experience. A brain scan will show you what parts of the brain are involved in the experience of thinking and feeling; a brain scan will not, however, tell you the nature or content of those thoughts and feelings. What a brain scan reveals is electrochemical activity in a physical organ, not anything remotely resembling "thoughts" or "moods." To simply reduce conscious experience to brain activity is to completely obliterate it: thoughts and feelings are reduced to electricity and neurochemicals; quality is reduced to quantity; interior is reduced to exterior; subject is reduced to object; depth is reduced to surface; the heads side of the coin is reduced to the tails side; and what remains is a flat and faded one-dimensional cosmos, wherein mathematics and logic, spirituality and philosophy, art, morals, truth, and beauty are all reduced to physics and empiricism without remainder. The resultant world is, as Whitehead put it, "a dull affair, soundless, scentless, colourless; merely the hurrying of material, endlessly, meaninglessly." Scientific materialism is, therefore, the insane position of saying that empirical reality alone is the "true reality" (even though there is no empirical basis for such an assertion), and it is always self-contradictory. Carter's book expresses this viewpoint, and says, in effect, that all conscious experience is ultimately reducible to nothing but systems of biochemical activity within the physical brain and body. But if that is actually true, and that statement itself is a product of conscious experience, then it is self-denying, simply because it claims to be "true" at a level where truth and falsehood have no existence (there are no "true" biochemicals versus "false" biochemicals; there are simply biochemicals). Thus, the existence of the very idea of scientific materialism proves that scientific materialism is fundamentally incorrect.

That aside, Carter's book is still the best of its ilk in the entire field of cognitive science, and if you want an introductory text on the subject of neural functioning, beautifully illustrated and reasonably informed, this is the book you need to get. (For an explicitly nonreductionistic approach to consciousness research--but without the lavish layout and brain mappings--check out _Integral Psychology_ by Ken Wilber.)

Rita Carter and Christopher Firth have put their heads together and come up with a very comprehensive yet accessible review of brain research. Carter's style, backed up with Firth's broad and deep knowledge of the field has yielded a most enjoyable and useful book.

Having followed many of the individual areas of research in the popular scientific press as they unfolded, I had a patchwork understanding of what has been done in the past ten or so years, especially since MRI and PET scans became common, but I did not have a complete and lucid picture.

Carter, with the support of Firth and many distinguished researchers in the field providing Cameo vignettes throughout, succeed in offering the layperson having little more than an interest in the field, an excellent read and a good high level reference source.

The overall design and illustrations in the large format softcover edition is very attractive and encourages reading.

I highly recommend this to anyone vaguely interested in how the mind works from a neuroelectrochemical perspective as well as from an anecdotal, human perspective. This is not a psychology book nor what I think of as a traditional cognitive science book and is much the better for it.

I bought this book a while ago, thinking it would help me later with studies etc. I picked it up one night and didn't put it down until two hours later, I was enthralled! Never before had the brain so intrigued me. Mapping the Mind has enough of a balance between the scientific jargon and the anecdotes to really inspire the reader. With help from diagrams, this book explains several mental disorders (such as depression, autistic children and the split-brain phenomenon) with the appropriate physiological explanation. My knowledge of not only the physiology of the brain but also other parts of the body was greatly enhanced by this book and it has led me on to read more about the brain and psychology. I realise this review appears to have a litle too many superlatives in it but if anyone else out there has read Rita Carter's Mapping the Mind, I'd be surprised if you didn't agree with me. (oh, and by the way, it managed to arouse this much interest in me and I'm 14)
Happy reading, Katie.

To put it simply, this is a good book. I'm not going to pretend to have read every C++ book out there but as a book that assumes no prior knowledge of C++ this does a good job of explaining the rules of the language. The book treats u as a novice which u should be if reading this book and explains the material thoroughly with examples highlighting relevent code. It also contains tips around common "pitfalls" in C++ programming.

The organization is a little off as other reviews have mentioned and subjects such as Inheritence are only introduced, not covered very well, but those are more advanced topics which shouldn't be covered well in beginners book. All in all, if u have no idea how to program in C++, or if you're new to programming itself, this would be a great book to get you started.

First year student in programming, I have to understand clear and fast. The interval between what I am tought and the assignments I must hand in could hardly be shorter. Walter Savitch's has prooven the best learning tool to grasp concepts and relationships between program components, complementing rightly the professor's lectures. As a starter for someone without any programming bacground, the book provides basic though serious theoretical knowledge. It takes the reader into the dynamics of C++ programs, explaining with detailed diagrams what happends, why and when during the source code execution. The coverage is wide enough (up to classes and recursivity) and the answered exercices are particularly welcome. Experts (God bless them) may find it superficial, the book sacrifying on purpose extensive covering of the C++ language ressources to comments upon the fundamental points that will serve you the rest of your programmer life. One could be a bit puzzled about finding arrays as far as chapter 9 but here you can jump on the chapter as it flow in class. To say it in one word, it is one of the very rare book in programming that deserves to be said a pedagogic one, made by an author with an obvious concern about making students understand how programs are actually working. Not sufficient by itself, it is thus nevertheless quite a rare gem in the world of machine books.

Geared towards beginner with no prior programming knowledge, this book teaches the fundamentals of the C++ language in a way that is extremely easy to read yet is very comprehensive. Savitch's down-to-earth style doesn't attempt to impress the reader with overly complex examples or ambiguously stated text. The book was designed to give the reader a solid understanding of the basic programming skills involved with C++ and does just that in a clear, concise manner. The book includes questions and answers along with suggested programming projects designed to sharpen skills.

Much of what Ruth Carter writes correlates with my own personal experiences during my brief involvement with Amway. I found this book to be perceptive, well-researched and thought-provoking. I do not agree with every detail and conclusion that she wrote. I do agree with her premise, though, that people run into trouble when they (gradually) abdicate their own knowing and follow others who seduce them not to think, and how that might have happened. This book deserves your attention if you are looking for more in life, not just with Amway, but through any organization you may now be in or be considering to join. It will help you evaluate how the organization functions so you can see if your situation is healthy or not.

Many people joined Amway only to realize later that they were not truly happy nor experiencing loving friendships, positive family relationships, lots of money, radiant health and that they were not really helping others. They were not where they had intended to be by involving themselves with the program. This book will allow them to heal -- to understand what they experienced and to question beliefs they had taken on which do not serve them; to feel good about themselves and to rebuild their lives. I think Ms. Carter provides a good service. Ultimately we are each responsible for our own choices.

The book is an great review of what I have also found to be true in Amway. The real money is in selling the motivational and training system to dream hungry distributors who THINK the key to riches is in the Amway products business. Don Lorencz, a Diamond distributor from Canada, confirms on his site that 80% of a dimaonds income is from his side business ot tapes, books and seminars, and 20% if actually from the Amway products business.

Anyone who has been in Amway should look around and see how much money they and their downline pumped into the "system", and then they might realize the real money is not in Amway product but selling the "Amway business system".

Read the book or live in a sheltered world.

Ruth Carter has done a great public service by exposing the deceptions, manipulations, and outright dishonesty of Amway Motivational Businesses. The corporation has a maligned reputation principally due to the operations of these "associated" businesses and their cultish-style tactics. From her position as assistant to a Diamond-level distributor, Mrs Carter's assertions are far more credible than lower-level distributors protestations of their "Upline's" integrity and character. The vast majority of distributors have no idea what "goes on behind the scenes" of the high level distributors they worship, and Ruth Carter exposes the wolves in sheep's clothing with pinpoint accuracy, based on over 10 years of personal experiences. Her examinations of the mind control techniques these organizations use is invaluable to former distributors like myself who spent 6 years in Amway and it's Motivational Money Drains. I hope that all current and future distributors will take an opportunity to "look at all the angles" of any business opportunity. That is, of course, what they advise you to do, isn't it?

I'm a guy and I just read this book to get an understanding of a woman's psyche. I wish all women would read this book. The woman who knows what smart women know is the kind of woman I would love to date. A woman who knows all these things and practices them would be a sure, confident, loving and non-manipulative woman who is sure to succeed with men!

A friend gave this book to me when I was a freshmen in college and in a relationship that was obviously horrible to everone except me. I saw myself in its pages. I have since given it to at least five friends. This book spells it out what men really mean/think when they treat a woman in a particular way in no uncertain terms -- and it is right on the mark. There is no reason to learn the hard way. All young women entering sexual or serious relationships should read this book.

I read this book for the first time in my twenties. At 36, I still refer to it from time to time when I doubt myself. Any woman can benefit from this book. You will feel as though you are reading about yourself!

This is my 4th Sandra Brown. The first three were Bittersweet Rain, 22 Indigo Place, and A Kiss to Remember. Anyway, I really like her as a writer. Something I've noticed is that she deals a lot with public opinion and gossip, and how it can be very negative or false. The plot is very good. Throughout this book, I kept thinking "I know that Lara couldn't have had an affair with Key's brother, it can't be." But Lara never denied it, so I was baffled. I kept on trying to find explanations for it, but could come up with nothing. I'm not going to say any more on that for fear of giving anything away, except when I got to an explanation, it was just "whoa... what?!"

on to the characters... I liked Lara. She was very competent and composed, and wasn't clingy. She also wasn't vindictive or mean, even when people acted incredibly badly towards her, but instead of making this look like she doesn't have a backbone, somehow it just makes her look stronger. And she is strong, she seems to take everything in stride no matter what. As for Key, I liked his little jokes and innuendos. If I met him in real life though, honestly, I'd probably think he was a jerk. He comes off as being really arrogant. He turns out to be an OK guy though. I wish some more time was spent on developing their relationship. What with all the action and plot twists, I sort of missed some of the chemistry between them. However, if you like Sandra Brown, you'll like this book, and it's worth reading.

This was my first Sandra Brown novel and I really enjoyed it. It mixed supense, decite, humor, and romance all into one book. I really liked reading about Lara and Key's relationship, how it slowly merged from hate, to tolerance, to love. Bowie and Janellen's love was interesting too. A guy who had hard breaks all his life, and a rich girl without love. One of the best parts is Key takes Lara to find Ashley's body, and gets captured by Emilio, and then something very shocking happens. This book you have to read.

I wasn't much of a romance novel fan (history or contemporary or otherwise) before I read "Where There's Smoke", but I was hooked by the end of the first chapter. After reading this book, I immediately read all other Brown books I could find. But none of her other books are as intriguing and enjoyable as this book, with the exception of "French Silk" which I also like. The this novel worked is because it delivers what it intends and does not try to be what it isn't. Translated, it means that this is a good comtemporay romance novel spiced with enough intrigue and mystery to keep the audience on the edge of their seats and reading till 3 in the morning. Not to mention that Lara and Key are a pretty hot couple. Oh to have romance like that! Only in books.

This was one of the first few Unix books I read when I had little experience in Unix administration. It gives detailed account on Samba development and how it works with windows networking. So if you have learnt some stuff already in Unix and Windows administration and if you are interested to have a brief account on how it works, then this 24 hour series surely will give you a nice introduction.

More importantly, the book guides the readers step by step on how to get the latest source of Samba, how to compile it, how to install it, how to configure it and how to get it work with 98/NT . Indeed the book has put together a whole picture of Samba that everyone should begin with and could easily comprehend. I set up mine successfully with the book.

However to really get Samba in production with this 24 series, I think more details on Samba configuration and security issue should be discussed if this series intend to serve Unix newbies like me. It is hard to follow the instructions to set up the password to control communication between NT and Unix. I suggest there should be some relevent Unix topic to be introduced in the book.

To conclude, this 24 series is really a good guide for people strong in Unix especially when we consider this book is one of the earliest books on Samba topics. The book is of quite excellent quality.

The book promises to teach Samba in 24 hours "when you only have time for the answers". Well, I spent more than 24 hours trying to make Samba work and this book did not help. The book never comes to the point and never gives a solution on the spot. While overview is OK, the reference is bad. I would still recommend this book if you actually have time reading around 400 pages. Look for something else if you need Samba running by the end of the week.

The online Samba documentation is too complete and expansive to be read and comprehended in a single sitting. This book does an excellent job of introducing the information in the order you need to know it, starting with high-level overviews of the concepts and the details later.

The "24 Hours" is a bit of an exageration, though. It only took me one hour to read the first 5 chapters - enough information for me to get a server up and running.

Yes, I am the author of this book. I have no axe to grind. No ego to protect. No royalties to protect. This book is over twelve years old and still selling. I have received thousands of letters and I have read every one. To date there were 3563 good letters, and three bad ones. Am I reviewing my own book? No. Hell. It is only good if people THINK it is. I am reviewing ... my reviews. Based on some of these reviews, it seems my book has ticked off a couple people. I may have offended "Invalidators" by making them psychologically naked and vulnerable. I think I might write a ... kinder-gentler book if I wrote it today. I feel badly that some reviewers took offense. "Invalidators" are who they are because someone ALREADY beat them down. Even so, I have no regrets for writing this book, which has now been read by over 3/4 million people. Am I saying that only an invalidator would criticize my book? Absolutely not. You judge that for yourself based on the review and the conflicting reviews.
But if someone is controlling and suppressive to their mate, and that mate happens to read my book, and takes the next bus out of town ... it wasn't my BOOK that is to blame. I say this to be truthful, not to be "right" about it. And yes, my book makes a person feel much better by identifying the source of the problem, AND could use more concrete solutions as the Dr. from Wales so honestly noted. Maybe it's time for a revised edition. I have learned more in the last 12 years.
Thank you for reading my review of the reviews.

Dr. Jay

For months, I have meant to write a review for Mr. Carter. I just gave away my last two books and have to order again. This book has helped me with step children, co-workers in a volunteer organization where you wouldn't typically think Nasty People reside, my husband who came from a manipulative family, neighbors who are nosey, and a sister-in-law who is definitely a Nasty Person.

I can just laugh and totally brush off their little stabs. Like Jay says, just totally take it out to the trash. Also, Jay teaches you how to recognize injury when you aren't really sure what happened or are momentarily confused.

This book will keep you in good health. People have told me that they wish they had had this book their whole life. It gives you the tools to deal with people who usually make you cringe. And, happily, THEY are the ones who are confused when you are "on to them" and they know that they can't hurt you anymore. It is fun.

This is the perfect gift to help others cope with the Nasty People in their lives. Mr. Carter's text is simple, clear and direct. The information is entertaining and valuable. Mr. Carter supplies the reader with new insights and effective tools for dealing with a 'Nasty'.

I have purchased many copies over the years and simply save them until I encounter a distressed victim of a 'Nasty.' Recently I gave a copy to a college professor who loved it.

Many thanks to Mr. Carter for his efforts and to Amazon for making this book availiable.